Closed Winter by Jorn Lier Horst - good crime novel from Norway

My review: Closed Winter is an interesting crime novel about police work, where the most important elements are collecting and analyzing evidence and ongoing conversations with people. If you like this kind of stories, when reach for this book of the Norwegian author Jorn Lier Horst.

What you should know? Author worked for many years in the police, he was the head of the investigation department of the District Police in Vestfold, Norway. Professional experience, knowledge about how daily operational work in Police looks like (he retired from service in 2013) and ability to creating unusual plots helps Horst to write very interesting crime books.

Main character: William Wisting
Jorn Lier Horst writes detective stories with Police Commissioner William Wisting in the lead role. You can buy 10 novels with this character, but you don’t have to read them in order. Of course, where are connection between books, but they are not blockers to buy titles randomly.

Closed Winter - description of the book from Amazon:
"The summer cottages are closed and peace is settling over the coast of Vestfold, Norway, but the autumn fog conceals evil deeds. Ove Bakkerud, newly separated and extremely disillusioned, is looking forward to a final quiet weekend at his summer home before closing for winter but, when the tourists leave, less welcome visitors arrive. Bakkerud's cottage is ransacked by burglars. Next door, he discovers the body of a man who has been beaten to death.

Police Inspector William Wisting has witnessed grotesque murders before, but the desperation he sees in this latest murder is something new. Wisting's unease does not diminish when he discovers several more corpses on the deserted archipelago. Meanwhile, dead birds are dropping from the sky".

Great plot
In Closed Winter there are some surprising moments. One scene in particular is very memorable. I wish I could write more about it, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise. But it worth to read the whole book even for this one scene :-)

Story is multidimensional, the writer skillfully weaves different threads to make it more difficult to explain what really happened on the day of the murder. If you like crime novels written by Henning Mankell with Kurt Wallander in the main role (see top 5 best books by Henning Mankell), I think you will also be interested in inspector William Wisting’s adventures.

What I particularly like about Horst’s book? Details. It feels that author knows exactly what he writes. In a few words he can accurately describe the steps in an ongoing investigation. I must admit that Horst came up with a really interesting character.

History has a few flaws (including that one of the threads is quite predictable), but the whole story is so interesting that I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a new author of detective stories or just well-written crime story to read. Buy Closed Winter on Amazon.com! :-)